Clean simple food please!!

Well my French is improving! Today I made an appointment to get both my hair and Miss Bok's hair cut at a salon around the corner.  They spoke no English at all and with my limited high school French a few decades on, we managed to make a time  :)

'Je ve peux air (?!) rendezvous Mercredi s'il vous plait'.  'Ah bon madame!'

Phew.  Times - I can't remember my numbers so thank goodness for pencil and paper and numbers that look the same in French as they do in English!

Hmm.  I wonder what we'll come out looking like.  Anything would be an improvement in my mind though!  I might have to post you a photo afterwards...but then you might see what I look like and never come back to visit my blog ever again!!    

Last night we did a very touristy thing and had dinner up the Eiffel Tower.  It was a lot better than I was expecting and the waiter was very charming.

Children's meal of chicken was lovely too although Master Bok preferred looking out the window at the sparkling lights.

Children's dessert of a chocolate mousse cake in the shape of the eiffel tower was cute

Miss Bok actually fell asleep during dessert. The kids have been great travellers - so pleasantly surprising!

 Paris by night is stunning.  Sigh.  

Today we visited the Opera and also did a bit of shopping.  Rather, Mr Bok shopped whilst I ate  ;)

 

 

On the walk back 'home' we passed by more interesting doors with fabulous handles! 

 

Those are not tampons! 'Les tampons' - no idea what that means, but they are cute little stamps in the shape of vegetables!  Miss Bok picked them out and the toadstool magnifying glass too.  The macaron and the chocolate were for moi.  To be honest I'm getting a bit over macaron...!  Never thought that would be possible.  I'm starting to crave clean, plain food...

For dejeuner tonight, we went to Cafe Constant which is local, about a 3 minute walk away.  I went there for dinner on Saturday night when Jo and James were visiting from London and liked it so much, we returned tonight with the children.  Such a lovely friendly place, the wait staff were so helpful and the food just divine.  Christian Constant is a celebrated French chef and Cafe Constant is his more casual dining bistro.  Excellent value for money though compared to the other places we've seen.  Once again, my French was understood and I was even offered the French menu  :)  I have more to thank my old french teacher for than I thought!  Even though I tried to lock her into a window and spent many lessons persuading her to listen to my budgie speaking French (and wasting much time too) or skipping class altogether, it seems some things stuck.

 

Master Bok (2) has an entree of a warm prawn tart - yum!  The other entree is a crab and fennel salad

 

Terrible photography using my phone, but this duck with crispy apple pie was brilliant. My prawns were pretty good too.  Didn't take pics of the other food, it all went rather too quickly...

 

Letting ourselves back into our apartment after a lovely dinner (doesn't get dark until after 10pm here)

The days are passing so quickly...probably a good thing for our credit cards (spent almost exclusively on food) that we leave Paris this Thursday.  It is incredibly expensive here.  Having an apartment with a kitchen for cooking and living next to a market street does help, but goodness, I think our house renos will have to wait quite a bit longer so we can enjoy France and eat French food!  You only live once or so we think.  Who knows when we'll next be back here.  So for now, within reason, we are enjoying!